Recently, anyone who pays attention to current events has been assaulted with the news that both the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ unions are striking simultaneously for the first time since 1960. Workers for UPS also recently reached a deal with their employer after threats of a nationwide strike by the Teamsters union.
Although many may think that unions are a thing of the past and are no longer relevant, they clearly remain both a political and economic force to be reckoned with. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 10 percent of workers in the United States are members of some kind of union. Despite the fact that membership is down substantially since the later part of the twentieth century, unions still represent a sizable demographic of the workforce.

Mere days prior to its receiving renewed attention because of an ongoing civil war, Sudan and many other African countries were (and still are) being promoted by news organizations as citadels of suffering. Viewers are subjected to heart-wrenching images: The gaunt, skeletal bodies of starved children crying out in hunger. Families left with only emaciated cows, selling sticks to produce some kind of livelihood. After observing these agonizing spectacles, the only logical question anyone could ask is, why does this poverty exist?
Fortunately, the impeccably informative news sites are quick to relieve us of this uncertainty. “Climate change” is the answer, they declare. Not “global warming” but the new existential threat of human-caused climate change has resulted in an increase in water